Chapter 1  Warlord
by rsharpe
Summary: Summary and Title Page are in the beginning of Chapter 1.
1. Chapter 1

TITLE: WARLORD

FANDOM: Stargate: Atlantis

AUTHOR: rsharpe

BETAS, HONORED ADVISORS AND ARTIST: To Be Announced

DISCLAIMER: All of Stargate: Atlantis is the intellectual property of other people. This is a work of fiction; none of it is mine with the exception of a few OCs and the sections of the story that are completely AU. If you wish to use any original situations or any OCs from this story, please ask first.

SPOILERS: May possibly contain content from all five seasons. Events and episodes go AU at points. Some episodes are mentioned only in passing, some are ignored altogether. There are situations and/or dialogue that may come directly from episode(s).

CHARACTERS: Sheppard-Centric but with most of the usual suspects.

GEN/HET/SLASH: Gen

RATING: MA: Mature Adult for canon death, violence, torture, drug use, intense situations, nudity, swearing, politically incorrect language, etc.

ARCHIVE: Do not archive without my permission.

STATS: This is not a WIP, the story is complete. Chapters will be various lengths due to the nature of the narrative. Some shorter chapters may be combined for continuity. I do not have a word count yet as the later chapters are still be revised. Right now, I'm assuming 20 chapters.

SUMMARY/WARNINGS: A Warlord is a person with both military and civil power and control over an area due to armed forces loyal to the warlord and not to a central authority. The term can also mean one who espouses the idea that war is necessary, and has the means and authority to engage in war. Under the feudal system the local military leader enjoyed great autonomy and a personal army, and still derived legitimacy from formal fealty to a central authority. A warlord can also mean a military commander exercising civil power in a region, whether in nominal allegiance to the national government or in defiance of it.

This story is about war. Most of the events will be from John Sheppard's perspective. It is not a pretty story, nor is it light reading. There are battles fought, large and small, both won and lost. Men and women meet violent and gruesome deaths. Some victims may be unarmed civilians, noncombatants or children. A lot of the characters will use language, slang and racial slurs that may make some people uncomfortable. These remarks and comments are not intended to shock, nor do they represent my personal opinions. People do not tend to be politically correct when fighting for their lives in a war zone. Some of these characters will not act or react as they did in canon. There are those who adopt a cavalier attitude toward death, their own and that of others. The characters in this story are facing what seems to be a hopeless situation as best they can, with courage and determination.

FEEDBACK: Positive feedback delivered in a respectful manner will be gratefully received.

WARLORD

Chapter 1

**"**Morality is contraband in war."

- Mahatma Gandhi

- 1869 - 1948

Captain Lyle "Dutch" Holland was dead. Their current little corner of hell had begun well over 24 hours ago when John had heard Dutch's hoarse voice, nearly unrecognizable from smoke and pain, calling into HQ over the designated ops channel for immediate exfil. Holland and Landers had been picking up two teams and Lyle's chopper had gone down under heavy fire. Since Landers was pushing his chopper's weight limit with several badly wounded men on board and had undetermined damage to his ship as well, he had no choice but to continue back to base. The sheer amount of gunfire and screams was almost overriding Holland's shouted words of desperation over the staticy com. He also confirmed that every soldier in his unit had taken fire and he was the only one still mobile.

It was taking way too long for the exfiltration orders to come down to their level from the higher-ups and John's disobedience that day would be armchair-quarterbacked for months by the lucky bastards who weren't there and hadn't had to make a decision in a matter of seconds. He'd landed his own bird just minutes before, finishing an uneventful border patrol. John heard the call on the com from the COs office as he was headed past his door for the briefing room down the hall. He was still suited up and he didn't even hesitate before turning on his heel and running back down the corridors with his commander's orders to stand down thundering after him. John knew he had scant minutes to act before the SFs came running out to stop him.

In spite of disobeying a direct order, taking up a chopper that hadn't been fully checked and refueled, shoving his shocked co-pilot out the door and onto the pavement to at least save his young ass, John knew there would be those who said it would all be for nothing before he even left the ground. That Holland and all his men were as good as dead. But John had to try. Dammit, he had to try again! God! This was exactly what had happened to Mitch and Dex in Khabour! So he slammed his helmet on and rushed the Hawk through the pre-flight. taking her up way too quickly, crooning nonsense to his lady all the way. They might try to physically stop him on the flight line, but they'd never fire on him. He was lifting off before the first wave of SFs had even made it half way across the burning hot pavement, the afternoon mirage making them appear as a shimmering ghost company coming to drag him back into hell. Instead, he was voluntarily flying into it. As an afterthought, he killed his com. He didn't need the distraction.

John knew that The Brass would declare that there had been too much risk for too little return, they'd say that was the reason the exfil orders weren't given. It was not the men's lives they were concerned with . . . it was money, pure and simple. Risk versus reward. Black figures on white paper, with a big, red minus sign denoting a negative return on the investment. If John went down hard, and there was a good chance he would from the abundance of firepower the enemy were using, that would be two multi-million dollar helicopters lost instead of one. At least it wouldn't be three. Landers' chopper had somehow come through the bombardment barely scored by the entrenched guns considering how bad it could have been. The wounded that Landers and his crew had picked up were already being sorted for transfer. Maybe some of them would even make it. John knew that there would be no orders for other choppers to follow him back in and cover the extraction. Hell, even if he made it back, with or without Holland or any of his crew, alive or dead, his ass was well and truly fucked.

Oh, Holland had been alive when John got there. Barely. The only one still painfully gasping for breath. But before he'd collapsed behind what cover he could find in the bullet-riddled chopper, Holland had been just mobile enough to destroy all the sensitive parts of his bird, just as John had done at his own crash site before loping over the uneven sand and rocks to locate any survivors. Of course John made it there by being shot down himself which was just all kinds of awkward when about all he had on him was his standard sidearm and a spare clip or two. A lucky shot had hit his rotor and brought John's copter spiraling down close to the first crash site. It had been the best controlled landing with damage that John had ever done. He was actually pretty proud of that.

The long range enemy fire had stopped for now and both John and Holland assumed the insurgents were shutting down their heavy artillery and camouflaging it in preparation to get down the mountain to the crashed helicopters and look for survivors or intel, hopefully both. The area between where the heavy fire had been coming from and the sand and brush where the helicopters were now was rocky, nearly vertical terrain. The Taliban would be already en route but they had a little time.

Things got really interesting as John attempted to patch Holland up with his little-used field trauma training. Since he'd grabbed the large first aid kit just before he took off running, he at least had plenty of supplies to work with. All sizes of field bandages, pads, clotting powder, sutures and even a plastic splint for Dutch's probably broken leg. What he didn't have was a trained medic, air and ground support and time.

Thank God the larger kits included a hard plastic case with pre-loaded morphine and antibiotic syringes. The splint would help a little when they moved, since they had no other choice. He'd taken a chance and injected his patient with half a dose of morphine to numb the pain a little before he started working on the worst of Lyle's injuries. John knew he didn't dare risk a full dose but he had to have Holland's cooperation. The other reason he skimped on the morphine was that Lyle's breathing seemed a little impaired. He didn't think a half dose would hurt him as he was pulling in air, even if it was a little labored.

Dutch still had enough spirit left in spite of the intense pain he was in to rag on John about crashing his own chopper. John thought about telling him another had been dispatched but Dutch would figure out that no one else was coming when they'd have to start moving instead of staying near the choppers.

John's own crash hadn't been quite as soft as he'd implied to Lyle. As far as his own injuries, John could feel what he hoped were just bruised ribs as every time he moved they thrummed in pain. His left shoulder felt more or less as it were being roasted over a slow flame and he wasn't nearly as coordinated as he'd like to be. His awkward movements might have something to do with the pounding headache that likely meant a slight concussion and the trickle of blood that he kept wiping away from his left eye. When the trickle turned into a steady stream, he paused working on Holland long enough to slap a small pad over the raised knot and bleeding scratch, taping it haphazardly just to get it stopped. John wished he could just lie down somewhere soft and safe and indulge in a little morphine as well.

Knowing that the clock was ticking, John muscled Dutch up and, with both of them grunting and cursing, half carried and half dragged him through as much sand and scrub as they could cover before dark. John knew they were leaving a trail from the wreckage that a child could follow and he also knew that Holland wasn't going to make it unless a miracle happened and a friendly picked them up. Soon. John had briefly considered taking shelter in an old, badly rusted Russian chopper, but their tracks in the sand led straight to it and there wasn't enough of it left to be a defensible position.

There would be no more helicopters coming, no more rescue attempts. Holland had gotten wise to that too and when John realized that they had been staggering across the broken landscape for hours and that the man couldn't take much more movement he gently lowered him to the sand. John tried his best to reassure Lyle by saying that he was really tired too and that they'd just take a short break. After about twenty minutes, Holland quietly succumbed to hypovolemic shock from too many bullet wounds John had had neither the time, skills or supplies to treat. Just before Dutch's eyes closed for good, he grabbed John's sleeve, nodded and gave him a wavering salute. John saw everything on Lyle's painfully grateful face that he just couldn't get enough breath to say. "Thanks for coming back for me, Sheppard. I didn't want to die alone. But it was a damm fool thing to do."

The oddest thing about the whole clusterfuck was that John didn't even like Holland. Basically Dutch's loud bullshit bragging about all his unlikely conquests and his bad jokes and clowning around got on John's nerves. He avoided him, his equally grating buddies and his antics, bypassing the cleared area at the front of the hanger that had been turned into a barracks where a few chairs and tables were set up as a makeshift dayroom. Enough packages got through that by this time they could be shared and there were decks of cards, board games, magazines and paperback books. Some of the packages even had goodies like cookies cushioned with popcorn and bags of M & M's. On his arrival, John had immediately claimed an empty bunk in a back corner as his, stowed his duffel and, by sprawling on it and keeping a book or magazine with him to appear occupied, he usually succeeded in being left alone. Hell, he would have read a Harlequin novel if it got him an hour or two of peace and quiet.

Here and now, with the cold night coming on fast and only Holland's corpse keeping him company, John kept thinking he should be regretting coming back. He'd really done it this time. This stunt was going to earn him much more than an hour standing at attention and being chewed out by the Old Man. He did regret all the hell this was going to cause both him and his commander providing, of course, he made it back to base. But he didn't regret doing it, not one damm bit of it. He didn't think he would regret it even if he was captured.

It was fucking cold in the desert at night. But it was also beautiful. John finally laid back carefully, mindful of his sore ribs and even sorer shoulder and used his good arm to cushion his head so he could look at the stars. They were different stars than the ones he'd memorized as a small boy, but he took what comfort he could from them. He had the feeling that comfort was going to be hard to come by soon.

TBC


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."

- Albert Einstein

- 1879 - 1955

John had done well during all four required courses of the USAF Survival School. Thinking back about how quickly he was snapped up at the end of the classes and assigned to Black Ops for further training, he wondered if excelling during those assignments might just have been a mistake. He was especially pleased and relieved when the last requirement which teaches Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape primarily to aircrew members was concluded. That course had concentrated on the principles, techniques and skills necessary to aircrew members to survive in any environment and finally to return home or back to the objective. His instructors made sure to put special emphasis on the "resistance" portion and John's stubborn streak had kicked in so he was gifted with their special attention. Now it was over and he was still sporting a black eye, a sore jaw, a ragged cut on his forehead, scrapes on his arms and legs, and rope burns encircling his ankles and wrists. But he'd beat the time of the next trainee in line and he'd been a SEAL.

He also had several bruises that were in very tender places so he figured he deserved a little fun and some liquid refreshment. And if that fun involved collecting on a few bets, well, so much the better. On a day pass between the completion of the schools and his transport out for the additional mysterious training, he got a ride from the base to a restaurant one street over from the Sunset Strip Club in Moose Creek. It didn't take long for John to figure out why the bar was off limits to all military personnel from Fort Wainwright and Eielson Air Force Base.

Thinking ahead, John had stuck civilian clothes in the bottom of his duffle, so that he wouldn't stand out as military immediately. He'd pulled on a pair of worn jeans, a long-sleeved thermal over a tee shirt and covered that with a North Face jacket. There was nothing he could do to disguise the boots, but it must have worked as none of the patrons even gave him a glance.

After his first beer in weeks, he gathered his courage and asked the big, mean-looking bartender with the shaved head and more tattoos than John could count if he could get a receipt for his beer with the name of the bar and the date and time stamped on it. The behemoth actually laughed at that and handed over a pre-printed receipt with all the information to John and told him he had brass ones. This blatant violation of regulations apparently impressed the man mountain.

John's new friend kept the free beer coming and it got better and colder as the afternoon wore on. At one point his buddy pushed a plate across the bar with a thick sandwich and a bag of chips. John left an enormous tip. Hell, it wasn't like he'd need money where he was going. It was just getting dark outside when he realized he'd better go before his luck ran out. The next stage show looked promising and, as far as he could tell, some of the dancers were even women, but he'd won the bet and probably shouldn't stay any longer or he'd miss his ride.

He'd also gotten an exceptional grade during his solitary six days in the mountains of Colville and Kaniksu Natuibak Forests. Hell, he'd enjoyed that. But what John had really excelled at was the SERE training back at Fairchild. He supposed he'd be using that knowledge real soon. John wondered briefly what the Taliban would grade on.

If he did make it back, he wouldn't lie during his inevitable Article 15 hearing and say anything except given the same circumstances he'd do it again. He wouldn't regret it during the mandatory Cool School at Eielson he'd have to attend, no matter how far below zero the temperature dropped. After all he was still the property of the United States Air Force, and he figured that McMurdo was about the only place he could possibly end up. That was the most remote base he could be sent to, if he survived, so that would probably be his next assignment. He had too many medals and commendations for bravery to kick him out right after this, and McMurdo used a lot of chopper pilots. Maybe he was being arrogant, but he just couldn't imagine a court martial being convened over a failed rescue attempt, even against orders.

As it turned out, he was right. He still didn't regret anything during the proceedings and all the lectures and warnings and being told for the thousandth time that he had it in him to be an excellent officer if he'd just get rid of his independent streak and his know-it-all-attitude. He didn't know who to thank that it really had turned out to be an Article 15 and not a court martial. John couldn't tell if his family connections had anything to do with it, but he was grateful all the same to whoever had pulled the strings. Then, finally, all was said and done and he was in the back of a transport headed to Christchurch and from there to Antarctica to fly choppers transporting military and civilians back and forth to what was supposed to be a secret installation. The Brass thought McMurdo would be the end of his career, not the beginning of a new one.

TBC


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can and keep moving on."

- Ulysses S. Grant

- 1822 - 1885

Colonel Marshall Edwin Sumner was dead. Actually, he was as good as dead before John's bullet had penetrated his heart. The wraith who was draining him had almost finished, but John had seen the request in the rheumy, aged eyes. Colonel Sumner had wanted an honorable death. A clean death. A Marine's death. John had given it to him. In return, the responsibility of that death was his to carry. It was not the only death that John held himself accountable for. Not the only death that he sometimes dreamed about, waking up tangled in sweaty sheets, nightmares pulling him from half-remembered battles or ops carried out in remote forests, jungles, deserts and more recently in endless, winding corridors that seemed almost living and breathing beneath the sticky coating of the walls.

Colonel Sumner certainly hadn't liked John. It was fair to say that he fucking hated him. John's superior little smirks in Sumner's direction probably didn't help, but John had always reacted the same way to authority and especially when the representative of said authority was holier than thou and hated his guts for no reason. Well, no reason except that he wasn't a Marine. During the weeks they were stationed at the Mountain for the main prepatory stage of the mission, John knew that Sumner had tried every trick in the book and some that weren't to get him transferred from the SGC and returned to his old unit at McMurdo. But since he'd disobeyed General O'Neill's orders not to touch anything when he'd transported him to the scientific installation, and sat down in the Ancient control chair he'd discovered that he had inherited something called the ATA gene in spades and was apparently desperately needed in Atlantis. On a highly probable one-way trip. To another galaxy. So, a little disrespect to a Marine Colonel was really not even on the long list of Things John Sheppard Shouldn't Have Done.

Dr. Elizabeth Weir was not only in his corner, but so was General O'Neill. She had blocked Sumner's every move as though playing a chess game that she knew she'd win long before the pieces were even set on the board. John hadn't liked Sumner either. Sumner was a hard core Marine who thought that anyone in the Air Force was a pampered momma's boy who'd never make it in the real armed services. He was a hard-ass, by the book, old-timer. Sumner had taken one long, assessing look at John and decided that he was nothing but a pretty flyboy who was probably doing Weir. Since John was inserted into the mission at the last minute more or less for his unique abilities and wasn't really considered in the chain of command, John assumed that Sumner hadn't even bothered to read his uncensored file. Maybe he would have had a slightly different attitude, maybe not. When they were forced to be in meetings together, Sumner simply ignored him. He surmised that Sumner would have probably asked him to get him coffee and doughnuts if he thought he could get away with it, but with General O'Neill there he had to play nice. He saw the repressed laughter in General O'Neill's eyes and realized that the general knew exactly what Sumner was thinking. John mentally moved O'Neill up several notches in his estimation. Besides, he got to drink the good coffee in the conference room.

John sometimes wondered what Sumner would think of Sheppard being the de facto Military Commander after John had shot him. And after that inauspicious beginning, John had held Atlantis together literally with his own and every other Atlantis team member's blood, sweat and tears until Earth was able to reestablish contact. Or even what Sumner would think of the body count he almost single handedly racked up during the attempted Genii takeover of the City when he'd been forced back into that deep, dark place that he'd been taught how to find within himself. But Sumner hadn't been there to judge him, that wasn't how it had gone down and all John could hope for was the interrogation by the Keeper had not gotten any important information from Sumner and the Wraith were still unaware of Earth. And even more importantly, how to get there.

TBC


	4. Chapter 4

"When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die."

- Jean Paul Sarte

- 1905 - 1980

When he was on his way to rejoin his unit in Afghanistan, John heard some of the experienced soldiers tell the newbies that no one ever forgot the first time they had to kill an enemy in battle. He'd thought that they meant killing an enemy face to face. Later, he found out that wasn't what they meant at all. The older soldiers were wrong. They were talking about long distance, impersonal kills from the relative safety of a chopper or with a rifle behind a barricade, or even tossing a grenade into someone else's fortified position. He wisely kept his mouth shut during the long trip and longer layovers. His orders to rejoin his old unit turned out to be the typical hurry up and wait variety. Maybe because he was an Air Force Officer and a pilot catching rides on Army transports or maybe the military was just dicking around, but he ended up on three different planes stopping at Kabul, Taiji and Kandahar before finally arriving at Bagram Airfield. Riding in the back of a transport was noisy, dirty and the canvas sling chairs were a miserable way to travel. He'd been tired when the trip started, and as he progressed from plane to plane he retreated into his thoughts rather than join in on the advice to the new soldiers. He snorted softly to himself, thinking he was the last person to give anyone advice.

During his rotation in Special Ops, John had done more than enough killing in places that were just as hot and dangerous as Afghanistan but a lot greener and wetter. Huge trees delineating the landscape instead of large rocks. Thick, twisting vines and solid walls of greenery instead of small patches of an ever present spindly bush that he'd never seen a single flower on but were covered in three inch thorns all the same. There was just something very real and personal about slipping through the almost impenetrable jungle or forest growth behind an enemy patrolling a perimeter and either slitting his throat or breaking his neck to maintain silence during the op. Those men would be hard to forget. On the occasions when he had too much to drink of the barely aged liquor from the village and too little to eat, John wondered if the most valuable lesson he'd learned from those kills was how to puke quietly after the first time and not step in it afterwards.

John's first combat kills in Afghanistan occurred when he was flying one of three Apache gunships in a wedge formation. He'd never even seen these "enemy's" faces. He'd never had to. His imagination conjured them up for him. All of them: men, women, children, even their Goddamm mangy, half-wild dogs and the ever present sheep and goats. He would remember these people in a completely different way.

The copters descended on the two remote villages which supposedly contained either Taliban or their supporters. Their formation came in low, just barely clearing the mountains to appear suddenly above the huts grouped together close to the hillside, the sound not reaching the villagers til they were on top of them. From the thin wreaths of smoke they could see on their approach, it must have been dinnertime. A lot of these people used crude hive shaped clay ovens because it was easier to get the wood for one large fire and keep it going long enough to cook what meager food they had. The villagers John had seen up close were poverty stricken. War of one kind or another had ravaged their land for centuries leaving little arable soil to farm or for their pitiful livestock to forage. Homeless people in the US had it better than they did. Someone made a crack over the mic that at least the Hajjis would all be in one place, using the communal oven, waiting to carry their food home. The villagers didn't know that fiery death was about to rain out of the sky and they'd never have to worry about dinner or anything else ever again. The distance and cold-blooded manner of these deaths bothered John much more than the wet work.

These particular villages would be blown from the face of the earth because "intel from multiple sources that have previously proven reliable and correct" reported that they were Taliban supporters or suppliers or hid the Taliban between raids. John knew how reliable the intel usually was. Out of date or delivered because someone from one village had a blood feud with another village or someone "thought" they'd seen Taliban or their supporters smuggling food or weapons through the mountain passes.

It didn't help his conscience that he was so damm good at what he did. John had been brought up in a strict Roman Catholic household and even though it had been years since he'd even been to Mass, much less Confession, he still wondered "why" he was so good at killing. If he hadn't learned the hard way to be a very private person, he might have gone to a Priest at one of his postings and tried to reconcile what that ability said about him. Being good at flying, he could understand. Sometimes when he was in the air he was actually "saving" lives, picking up his men and cas-evacing the wounded. It helped to think about that.

Then there were the other things he'd learned he was good at. During his rotation on the Black Ops assignments when he was in the jungle, he'd learned to move as silently and unseen as the native guides. There were no regular supply trucks coming this close to the border. Out of necessity, John had gotten proficient at finding the crates that were dropped for them overnight about once a month. The parachutes came in handy for reinforcing ceilings and walls against the almost constant drizzle. They broke up the wooden crates, using them for reinforcing the bunks or patching holes in the roof. The MREs were a welcome change from the rations they were able to scrape by on out here between drops. Most of it was pretty bad, only supplemented by whatever the villagers were able to spare and a few things they were able to steal on their raids. Coffee was a luxury item, but they were more likely to find rice and maybe bread if they were lucky and had the time to look.

The guides had tasted the instant American coffee from the MREs and had been appalled. Soon after that, small burlap sacks of rich smelling coffee beans arrived with an ancient tin grinder and a beaten up coffeepot. Luckily, the coffeepot was the perfect size to sit on the small alcohol stove they used for heating what little food they had. Smoke from any other type of fire would have given their position away immediately. The grinder had to be taken apart with each use and the blades sharpened, but it was worth the trouble. They usually had some white American sugar or powdered yacon root from the village, but the coffee was excellent without adding anything at all.

This temporary HQ (the military version of "temporary" which meant this team had occupied the general area for about 14 months, moving around periodically) consisted of a camouflaged shack set between two huge trees. They wrapped their rickety bunks totally in mosquito netting before trying to sleep. John wanted the netting over and around him while he slept not because of the mosquitoes, but because of the other creatures that lived under the litter on the forest floor. John definitely wouldn't miss the bugs. Especially the roaches and centipedes which were the largest he'd ever seen.

After almost a year of these missions, he'd been unexpectedly transferred out of the Special Ops Program that as far as he knew didn't even exist on paper. His orders stated that he was being reassigned to his old unit, now in Afghanistan. He'd been handed the paperwork right after another successful foray against the drug and gun runners. John just stood there for a minute or two trying to get his head around the fact that he was being transferred. He was soaked in sweat, filthy, wet from the constant rain, completely exhausted and still had the blood of at least three men on him beside his own. He thought he'd actually miss this place. It took weeks to travel through the jungle and back to what passed for civilization. John was glad he had that time to attempt to rejoin civilization a little himself.

After a week in Afghanistan he'd traded his distaste for the humidity and the creepy crawlers for the unremitting dry heat and the fine sand that blew constantly and got everywhere. Everywhere. And the coffee here sucked. In desperation, he switched to tea, which never failed to amuse the Marines. At least he drank it black from a styrofoam cup with the tag hanging over the side. There were the expected remarks and sniggers about pilots and their cappuccinos, but it was all in fun. If he thought the package would get here undamaged, he'd write someone he'd been stationed with Stateside and have a china cup and saucer sent. He was sure that would crack them the hell up.

The Jarheads were by no one's standards stupid and they all seemed to appreciate John's wry, sarcastic answers to some of the more idiotic questions he'd been asked while he waited for the tea in his sippy cup to cool. Everybody at his table belly laughed when Ramirez misquoted Paul Rodriguez that "War was Gods way of teaching Marines geography." But no matter how friendly and open John seemed, the marines learned quickly that he'd go distant and silent when someone asked "Sir, where were you stationed before you ended up here?" That question was met with the blank look that screamed "Top Secret". Unsurprisingly, his reputation among the Marines began to soar.

TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by soldiers, mostly knaves and by rulers, who are all fools."

- Ambrose Bierce

- 1842 - 1914

As the FNG, John expected his fair share of harassment and tall tales of the dangers of the desert, officer or not. It was a tradition handed down forever and he really didn't mind when he'd first been told about the camel spiders since he'd come from the land of the OMFG BUGS! He pretended to take the advice quite seriously. John didn't really believe there were spiders in the desert that big. What the hell would they eat? However, just as he was entering the barracks late at night one of the spiders chose that moment to exit said barracks. Luckily, his first impulse to clamp his hand over his mouth cancelled out his second impulse, which was to scream like a fucking girl. John decided that particular piece of legend about the size and speed of the spiders just might be real.

Once John saw one of the camel spiders for himself, he became irritatingly careful of the area where he slept, shaking out and inspecting the bedding. His boots were treated to the same thorough shaking as was any clothing which had been folded and stored out of the way. He listened to every horror story about the spiders to gain knowledge of where they were most likely to be found so he could avoid those spots. Finally, however, a worried Sergeant took John aside and told him the truth about the pests. In spite of their size and horrible appearance plus their speed when disturbed they were, in fact non-venomous. Just to be extra reassuring to the young Major, the older Sergeant cheerfully informed him that he had a much better chance of being stung by a scorpion than being bitten by a camel spider. After that, John had yet another creepy crawler to worry about.

Aside from the lack of good coffee, the abundance of fine, irritating sand, the camel spiders and the scorpions, he wasn't necessarily unhappy here. He was on the rotation to fly as often as he could be allowed and he could fly anything they put him in. Fly like it was second nature to him. Any kind of helicopter, it didn't matter. He had the magic touch. John didn't say much over his mic when he was on a mission. After the pre-flight and whatever else was necessary if he had soldiers to drop off, he retreated into silence. He was listening, but not to the meaningless chatter and posturing of the nervous men in the back and only peripherally to HQ. He listened to the chopper, to the feedback he got from whatever machine he was in. It was almost as though he was plugged into it somehow. He knew automatically when something wasn't right, when an instrument wasn't reading true, when the rotors were spinning just a hair slower than they should be. He listened and he paid attention. That was his advantage over other pilots who were just as skilled and had more air time than he did. He trusted his helicopters and the information they gave him.

John never talked about the connection to the choppers except to his maintenance crew. They were the only ones who understood and respected him for the information he passed on. If he'd told anyone else about it he figured it would earn him a few trips to the psychiatrist and weeks of downtime. The ground crew in charge of keeping the helicopters airborne knew he was almost always right when they checked on whatever problem John had mentioned. As far as John was concerned, these crews had the most important jobs on the base. So he just kept his mouth shut in front of anyone else. He was really good at that, too. Plus, at his embarrassed request, before every one of his flights his choppers were inspected and cleared of every conceivable place that a camel spider or scorpion would even consider hiding.

He certainly wouldn't discuss anything actually important with the guys in his unit. They did all the things that soldiers everywhere did to stave off the boredom until the shit hit the fan and there was no more boredom. They played cards, usually with the decks that pictured the Taliban's most wanted. Now that they had acquired some hand-held video games they passed them around when they could get batteries. Someone even scrounged up the occasional laptop they could use for a while. The laptop was good for Freecell or Spider Solitaire. Minesweeper was just a little too real. Sometimes they watched DVDs they'd seen a hundred times. A few of the men who had gone home sent some Classic Football DVDs which was enough to lift everyone's spirits for a solid week. Sports magazines were, strangely enough, in much higher demand than porn. They drank all the water the medics pushed on them, aware of the dangers of dehydration. A couple of the guys would have sneaked alcohol, but alcohol in this country was impossible to get. It wouldn't have helped anyway. It never did. As well as pushing water, the docs pushed pills. All you had to say was that you couldn't sleep or that you did sleep but the nightmares woke you up and you'd leave the Med Tent with a few blister packs of Ambien and Xanax if you didn't have a mission the next day. The Docs didn't even bother with adding the meds dispensation to the charts, the group of pilots was so small they'd know if anyone was overdoing it. No point in documenting information that would follow a pilot around in his med records unless it turned out to be serious.

TBC


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

" The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy."

- Friedich Nietzsche

- 1844 - 1900

John finally got so bored he even tried to learn a bit of the local language during mandatory down time until he figured out that no one was willing to teach him. The few local men allowed on base he approached with caution and asked about learning to speak at least a couple of common phrases but they obviously didn't trust him. He wouldn't have trusted him either.

Eventually an elderly Afghani sauntered up to him where he was sitting in what passed for shade downing part of his daily required amount of water. John had seen the older man before, talking to one of the intel guys. So he must have permission to be on the base. The villainous old man, who resembled an extra out of an Indiana Jones movie, spoke passable English. The first thing he asked John was if he wanted to learn Dari and Pashto in order to spy or to seduce a woman. Appalled, John denied either and said he just figured that learning a new language might be useful. Introductions were formally made and he and Samir worked out a complicated barter system that involved an hour or two of language instruction from Samir in exchange for a supply of Samir's favorite parts of MREs, usually the wrapped cakes, and the highly prized M & Ms and packs of cinnamon or mint chewing gum from John.

Samir never praised him on his progress. If John got something right, he just grunted in acknowledgement or nodded his approval. If he messed up really badly, Samir would smack him on his thigh, arm or the meaty part of his shoulder with what John assumed was a camel stick though he never saw Samir with a camel. The unorthodox method of teaching had it's benefits. After a few weeks, the old bruises began to fade and there were very few fresh ones. The tiny bit of praise Samir offered John once, if it could be called praise, was shortly after a lesson that had gone extremely well on John's part or at least Samir hadn't resorted to the "stick of doom". He told John that he had a gift, not seen often in many white Christian men, and it was not just a gift for learning a new language. John didn't understand and Samir refused to explain himself, just abruptly ended the lesson for the day and left John to wonder what he'd meant. Samir never mentioned it again and John didn't ask but he thought about what it might mean often at night when he couldn't sleep.

After a little over three months of their daily lessons, interrupted only by John's flights and other duties, Samir pronounced him as ready in the basics as he was ever going to be without holding real conversations daily, told him to practice if he got the chance, solemnly shook his hand and strolled out of camp with his packs of gum, wrapped cakes and M & Ms secreted in the voluminous pockets of his robes. John always looked for him after that last lesson, but he never saw him on base again.

TBC


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"A conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla army wins if it does not lose."

- Henry Kissinger

- 1923 -

It was almost exactly a month after that final lesson with Samir that John stood an informal watch beside Holland's body through the long, cold night wondering if he'd die from exposure or thirst before he was captured. He knew approximately how far he was behind the lines and that the Taliban and their supporters would be all over the wrecked choppers like stink on shit looking for anything of value as well as survivors.

He didn't have to wait long after the first rays of dawn appeared to lighten up the area. Five enemy soldiers abruptly stood up from a few yards away. John had been hungry, thirsty, hurting badly from his injuries and exhausted by the adrenaline rush of what he'd hoped would be a rescue and then the crash of both his helicopter and his spirits when Holland died. He'd been so inwardly focused on what he should do next that he never knew they were there. He realized afterward that they'd simply stopped short of coming in closer to capture the Americans whose trail they'd followed and wrapped themselves in their robes, keeping watch. They must have been waiting for enough light so they could see how well armed the American soldiers were.

There was, of course, no point in even pretending to put up a fight. They all had AK-47s, but some of the handguns were also Russian, old Tokarevs mixed in with captured 9 mils, all aimed at him. In spite of the desert backdrop this wasn't a western and even though John was an excellent shot with his Beretta, he was most sincerely not a gunslinger. John was disarmed casually and patted down for the extra clips. They took his bolt knife from his belt and John realized that this was not their first rodeo as they gestured for him to hand over the smaller hold-out knife in his right boot. After a little muttering, which John couldn't make out, they even gave him water. The water came out of a skin bag that was warm and tasted like whatever had originally been wearing the skin. It was delicious.

Two of them checked Holland's body, making sure he was dead before taking a few things from his pockets they thought might be useful. John had already secured Holland's dog tags and arranged his body carefully as a gesture of respect if not friendship. He resented the rough handling of Lyle's corpse and attempted to intervene. As a result, he was promptly thrown down in the sand and had his ribs re-tenderized. After they got that out of their systems John remembered that it would have hurt way more if the men doing the kicking had been wearing boots instead of sandals.

As John turned over to regain his breath, two of the soldiers finished their search of Holland's uniform pockets then they hauled John back up and tied his hands together with a thick strip of leather in front of him so he could keep his balance and marched him off to an unknown fate. John only tried to turn around once for a last look but he was yelled at and shoved roughly forward. He didn't try to turn around again.

TBC


End file.
